Almost there. .. Andzor’s film “Innocent” left me a generally positive, but somewhat ambiguous impression.
What is this movie about?
In a nutshell, this film is not about Revenge, as it might seem from the trailer, but about Forgiveness. It should also be noted that this product is mainly for the Caucasian viewer, since there are too many contexts and allusions that may be little understood by viewers from the regions of our country with a predominantly Russian population.
The short plot of the film boils down to the fact that a young Azamat (Kantemir Shipshev), the nephew of the main character Aitech (Akhmed Khamurzov) a former police officer, a special forces officer is killed in a fight in Moscow, where he went to work. Aitech learns about what happened and goes to Moscow to look for the murderers of his nephew.
At the beginning, I will note the strengths of the film, which in many ways, apparently, turned out by chance.
The plot as a whole creates an impression of a holistic history in contrast to Vladimir Bitokov’s film “Deep Rivers”, to which we will return more than once.
Andzor Yemkuzh film about ordinary people. In the main characters of the film, the viewer will very easily recognize himself, his friends and relatives. Relationships between people, difficulties and problems disturbing them are shown quite realistically.
In fact, this is the story of one particular family in which a specific tragedy occurred, unlike Bitokov’s film about abstract people living in abstract mountains, in abstract conflict with their neighbors.
In the film Innocent, the goals and motivations of the characters are very easily and quickly read, they are clear and yes, what to say is simple. There are no questions about why and where the heroes go, what they do, what they want to achieve. In this regard, the viewer easily identifies himself with the characters, empathizes with them and, therefore, is much deeper and more involved in the emotional component of the film.
In the film, there are two scenes at the funeral, which, apparently by chance, the authors of the film succeeded. There is such a strong emotional tension in them that when I watched the film in the cinema, the female audience of the hall softly sobbed, and the male half, timidly and almost shy, wiped the stingy male tear. It makes sense.
The acting of some actors in places is quite good. Zhanna Tkhashugoyeva (Zera, mother of Azamat) coped with her role very well. In some scenes, the emotions, facial expressions and intonations of the voice are simply piercing, although such tension decreases and increases throughout the film. Arthur Proskurin (Egor) who played the killer is also very good in places, but again his game is uneven. Zamir Dyshekov (Murat) plays textured and lively, but somehow too flat and one-sided. Timur Ketenchiev quite well plays the rural fool Halua, a rather strange character, the only one of all the characters reading books and quoting Confucius. He seems like a juridical and local fool. However, if you look at what he does and what he says, he turns out to be the most rational of all heroes. The smallest actor Dinur Adzinov coped with his role best of all. Here brilliantly worked his childhood spontaneity and perhaps innate talent. All the other actors of the film play flat and not interesting.
The soundtrack to Marat Paritov’s film is pretty well woven into the overall narrative, albeit with a bit of extra tear or pathos to some places. Mixed on folk motifs and ancient songs-weeping, it feels natural, but in some places surprise woven into the musical fabric of some exotic musical instruments, such as, for example, the Australian didgeridoo. Why this is necessary is not clear.
The finale of the film can also be put in an absolute plus.
Weaknesses of the film
The visual component of the film immediately reveals how low the budget was probably.
Judging by all the elements of the picture, the authors did not use professional film technology, but good, but amateur wedding technique. On the large and medium planes, the picture is good and deep, but some long-range plans, especially flights over the city or village, are very lame. You can immediately see that filmed from wedding drones with a resolution of the picture, probably 1080 by 720 points and no more. Not often, but unprofessionalism, almost sloppy, manifests itself in the fact that in several frames you can see the moving shadow of a fly on the lens.
In several scenes (3 at least) unprofessionalism manifests itself in the fact that the camera is not evenly and slightly tilted to the side, so to speak, 5 degrees. In the first scene, I thought it was such a director's move, but then I realized that it was a stupid puncture of the operators.
There is absolutely no flower-core that worked so well in Bitokova’s film, creating a deep gloomy and cloudy atmosphere. Here only natural colors and shades are used, which suggests, perhaps, that the authors of the picture simply do not know how to make color correction of the video.
Installation is generally cheerful, not too fast, but in some places somewhat ragged. There is a strong influence of the Hong Kong militants of the 80s and 90s with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jackie Chan.
The angles and mise-en-scene scenes also give a lot to the militants of the 80s and 90s. Especially strongly, almost frame-by-frame, quoted in the action movie Commando 1985 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the scenes of questioning the alleged killers of the nephew of the main character.
In general, the visual component of the film is not particularly impressive.
Another weakness of the film is the acting of Ahmed Khamurzov. In some scenes, he seems to look natural and adequate, but in most of the film, his facial expressions, gestures and intonations of the voice do not correspond to what is happening in the frame (sometimes they even look strange). Akhmed Khamurzov himself is not a bad actor and apparently these inconsistencies arose due to the fact that the director did not explain or could not explain what his acting task is.
The old acting guard consisting of Kanshobe Khashev, Asker Nalovev and Valentin Kamergoev play quite flat and ordinary. They don't. There is nothing to say about younger actors.
As a result, we can say that the authors almost managed to make a good film about revenge, love and forgiveness, but only almost. Most of the positive things happened by accident. Quite often, the lack of professionalism of the operators and the general weakness of the director are visible. Not very good acting is explained by the bad work of the director. This he could not explain, direct, force in the end. I hope the next Andzor movie will be better, it’s still young.
4 out of 10